The present invention relates to data entry on a computer system. Financial services software has automated many repetitive, but important tasks. For example, bill payment software is designed to ease the process of paying bills electronically. Generally, the bill payment software provides a user interface for entering account and payment information, and setting up periodic payment instructions. As a result, and in some cases without further user input, the payment software automatically submits the payment instructions to a payment processing system.
The configuration process for setting up the financial services software is typically a burdensome process, especially for inexperienced users. It is important that numerous data fields be populated with accurate information. Because the information is critical to performing the financial services, the configuration process will conventionally stall the process upon detecting a data entry error. For example, if a user enters an account number that does not match a given format for account numbers, the configuration process will not continue receiving data. Thus, the user has to either retrieve correct information before continuing or discontinue configuration.
Also, because conventional configuration processes either accept or reject data, there is no way of flagging data as suspicious by the application or as unreliable by the user, even though the data is technically acceptable. For example, a user can enter an account number from memory that, although is in the correct format, is not considered reliable by the user.